Parks and People: The Effects of National Parks on Appalachian Communities

Scope: 

This pathfinder provides an introduction to available literature that discusses the removal and resettlement of Southern Appalachian communities as a result of the creation of Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee, and Shenandoah National Park in Virginia . The creation of the two parks caused the displacement of thousands of families in Southern Appalachia , many of which were not justly compensated for their losses. Although there is a wide array of literature discussing the history of the parks generally, relatively few authors address the “darker side” of the campaigns for park creation. The user may notice that scholarly journals have not been included in this collection, and that those scholarly articles listed tend to be written in the early 1930s. Very few journals have covered this topic with any sort of regularity, and most coverage came just as the parks were created and opened. The majority of the items are located in the W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection at Appalachian State University, and all can be acquired through the Western North Carolina Library Network or via the Internet.

Introductory Text: 

Lambert, Darwin . 1989. The Undying Past of Shenandoah National Park. Boulder: Roberts Rinehart, Inc. ASU APP. COLL.: F232 .S48 L37 1989

Library of Congress Subject Headings: 

Highly Relevant:

  • Cades Cove (Tenn.) - History, Economic Conditions, Social Conditions
  • Great Smoky Mountains (N.C. and Tenn.) - History, Social Life and Customs
  • Great Smoky Mountains National Park (N.C. and Tenn.) - Bibliography, History, Environmental Conditions, Political Aspects
  • Human Ecology - Great Smoky Mountains National Park (N.C. and Tenn.)
  • Land Use, Rural - Appalachian Region, Southern
  • Land Use, Rural - Moral and Ethical Aspects - Appalachian Region, Southern
  • National Parks and Reserves - Appalachian Region, Southern - History
  • National Parks and Reserves - North Carolina , Tennessee , Virginia
  • Shenandoah National Park (Va.) - History

Also Relevant:

  • Appalachian Region, Southern - Environmental Conditions, History
  • Environmental Policy - Social Aspects - Appalachian Region, Southern
  • History - America - United States Local History - North Carolina
  • History - America - United States Local History - Tennessee
  • History - America - United States Local History - Virginia
  • Human Ecology - Appalachian Region, Southern
  • Land Use - Environmental Aspects - Appalachian Region, Southern
  • Land Use - Moral and Ethical Aspects
  • National Parks and Reserves - Law and Legislation, Management, Political Aspects, Planning

More General:

  • Agriculture - Forestry - History of Forests, Forest Conditions
  • History - America - United States Local History - Atlantic Coast , Middle Atlantic States
  • History - America - United States Local History - The South, South Atlantic States
  • Mountain Life - Appalachian Region, Southern
  • Mountain Life - Shenandoah River Valley (Va. And W. Va.)

Related:

  • Geography, Anthropology, Recreation - Environmental Sciences
  • Land Use
  • Mountains - North Carolina, Tennessee
  • North Carolina, Western - History
  • Parks
  • Protected Areas
  • Public Lands
  • Social Sciences - Industries, Labor, Land Use
Clipping Files Subject Headings – W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection: 
  • Cades Cove
  • Great Smoky Mountains National Park
  • Shenandoah National Park, VA
Library of Congress Call Numbers: 
  • F106
  • F210
  • F217
  • F232.S48
  • F232.S5
  • F443.G7
  • F444
  • GE195
  • HD207
  • HD210
  • SD144
Books: 

Brown, Margaret Lynn. 1995. Smoky Mountains Story: Human Values and Environmental Transformation in a Southern Bioregion, 1900-1950. Ph.D. Diss, University of Kentucky. ASU APP. COLL.: F443 .G7 B76 1995a

Brown, Margaret Lynn. 2000. The Wild East: A Biography of the Great Smoky Mountains. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. ASU APP. COLL.: F443 .G7 W55 2000

Dunn, Durwood. 1988. Cades Cove: The Life and Death of a Southern Appalachian Community, 1818 - 1937. Knoxville : University of Tennessee Press. ASU APP. COLL.: F444 .C26 D86 1988

Perdue, CL & Martin-Perdue, NJ. 1991. “’To Build A Wall Around These Mountains’: The Displaced People of Shenandoah.” The Magazine of Albemarle County History 49: 49-71. ASU APP. COLL.: F232 .A3 A5 v.49

Pierce, Daniel. 2000. The Great Smokies: From Natural Habitat to National Forest. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. ASU APP. COLL.: F443 .G7 P54 2000

Reeder, Carolyn and Jack. 1978. Shenandoah Heritage: The Story of the People Before the Park. Washington , DC : The Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. ASU APP. COLL.: F232 .S5 R43

Guides, Encyclopedias, and Dictionaries: 

Ewert, Sara Dant and Hal K. Rothman. 2004. Encyclopedia of American National Parks. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc. ASU REF: E160 .E53 2004 See v.1, pp. 293-297 (Great Smoky Mountains National Park) and see v.2, pp. 529-532 (Shenandoah National Park)

Van West, Carroll, ed. 1998. The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture. Nashville, TN: Tennessee Historical Society: Rutledge Hill Press. ASU APP. COLL.: F436 .T525 See pp. 109 (Cades Cove) and see pp. 383-385 (Great Smoky Mountains National Park)

Bibliographies: 

Appalachian Studies Association. 2000. A Selected Bibliography of Scholarship on Appalachia. http://www.appalachianstudies.org/resources/bibliographies/index.php

Brown, Jo B. Appalachian Studies Bibliography 1994 - 2004. West Virginia Universities Library, Morgantown, WV. http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/bibliography/index.htm

Carpenter, David E. 1982. Impacts and Influences on the Great Smoky Mountains National Park : An Annotated Bibliography with a Discussion and Review of Selected Findings, Recommendations, and Conclusions. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Research/Resources Management Report SER-64. WCU GENERAL: F443 .G7 C37 1982

Nodvin, Stephen C. and Julie S. Rigell and Susan M. Twigg. 1993 (1999). An Indexed Reference Database of the Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina and Tennessee . U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Technical Report NPS/SERGRSM/NRTR-93/08. http://web.utk.edu/~nodvin/great_smoky.htm

Abstracts and Indices: 

America : History and Life. http://www.library.appstate.edu/vdb/get_record_by_alpha_report05?mychar=A

JSTOR . http://www.library.appstate.edu/vdb/get_record_by_alpha_report05?mychar=J

Journals: 

Clayton, C.F. 1935. “Program of the Federal Government for the Purchase and Use of Submarginal Land.” Journal of Farm Economics 17 (February): 55-63.

Gray, L.C. 1936. “The Social and Economic Implications of the National Land Program.” Journal of Farm Economics 18 (May): 257-273. [Full Internet access for the Journal of Farm Economics is available through the ASU Library.]

Websites: 

Leung, Yu-Fai. 1995. Natural Resources Research Information Page. (http://www4.ncsu.edu/~leung/nrrips.html)

National Park Service (http://www.nps.gov)

Compiled by: 

Compiler: Caroline Poteat, Fall 2006

Subject: